the fate of earthly life watching clumps of cells that hadn't
even learned

to crawl? In the same way, we cannot grasp the range of what
machines

may do in the future from seeing what's on view right now."

The Society of Mind, Marvin Minsky,
Page 30

Preface 2004

I
published the original version of this paper entitled "Intelligent Tools: The Cornerstone of a
New Civilization", in AI Magazine, the scientific journal of the American
Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), in its Fall
1985 issue.The
Persian/Farsi translation was published in January 1998 inthe first issue ofAyandehNegar magazine.

If I was writing this paper today, I would write most of it the same way I had
written at that time, except for parts of the last section, where I have
discussed robots as a new species, which I would expand as I have done in my
2003 article entitled Impact of Intelligent
Tools on Human Life.
I would emphasize the fact that emergence of a new
species does not mean immobility and stagnancy of human evolution and
development. Of course, the subject of this paper is discussion of
intelligent tools as far as they function as *tools*.

When
I published this article, I received a letter from Daniel Bell, who wrote to me
that he found my anthropological material of interest, but did not agree to the
usage of the term "intelligence" and preferred the term
"inference", which many European writers use for the noted functions
in these tools. He noted that these tools have some rules of inference built
into their programs, which let them perform some mental functions, but in and
of themselves do not possess "intelligence".

Daniel
Bell's comment was to emphasize how the word "intelligence",
particularly in relation to judgment, bedevils us. I agree with his comments,
and I would consider my usage of the term "intelligent" for tools, to
be appropriate only in the narrow sense of the term "intelligence",
as defined in this paper for vision (and other sense perceptions), natural
language learning, or heuristics of expertise.

Ironically,
ever since I published this paper, my interest shifted and I neither pursued
the anthropological thesis presented in this paper, nor did I pursue the issues
of Philosophy of Mind, as related to the field of Artificial Intelligence.

My
anthropological thesis emphasizing the concept of technological basis of
treating a sentient being as a tool, pointed to, among other things, as to why
the technological basis of slavery not-having-been-eliminated, made it possible
for the socially outmoded slavery, to be revived in the US, even centuries
after slavery had been eliminated as a social, political, economic, and
cultural system.

Also
as far as issues of the Philosophy of Mind are concerned, on the other side of
the spectrum from Daniel Bell's emphasis, in the recent years, Marvin Minsky, in his *Society of Mind*, has explored other
explanations of intelligence. Since the time I wrote this paper, I have not
followed up on the issues which relate to the topics in Philosophy of Mind,
especially as related to Artificial Intelligence.

Some authors
such as Aaron Sloman, have been publishing extensive excellent research on the
subject in the last few years, where he has discussed the
Kantian theory of viewing human senses as theory-impregnated. Also
Ray Kurzweil,
in the last 20 years has proposed a vast body of new works on this subject.

For example, Ray Kurzweil
in his new researchstates that immortality will be accessible to humans within the next
20 years, and that human beings after
millennia of fear of death, with the
progress of nanotechnology, will become immortal. Such an
upheaval will give rise to population growth, as we have witnessed the growth of
senior citizen population in the developed world in the recent decades.

On the opposite
direction, in my opinion, reduction of use of humans as intelligent tools,
will cause a reduction in the speed of human reproduction growth, the same way
that the replacement of horses by cars as the tools of transportation, reduced
the speed of population growth of horses in the last half century. Of course my discussion here is about humans as
*tools*, and other dimensions of humans to produce knowledge and art, and
other realms of human life, are not intended.

I am indebted to the many individuals whose fruitful criticisms improved
my work, especially William Clancey (a pioneering scientist in the
field of Artificial Intelligence (AI)), whose reflections on an earlier draft
spurred me to clarify some elusive passages; and Robert
Engelmore (AI scientist and the editor-in-chief of AI Magazine), whose
editorial comments were also cogent and well-founded. Nonetheless, I am solely
responsible for this final manuscript.
I acknowledge the controversial nature of my article and hope it kindles further
discussion and debate from the readers.

_____________________________________________________

ABSTRACT:

The
following article briefly describes the developments of tools and knowledge in
human history and states that these two phenomena co-exist only in intelligent
tools.It focuses on the productive
merits of the past intelligent tools, and discusses the social and biological
demerits related to their essence (animal or human).Moreover, since human beings were unable to
produce an intelligent tool capable of outperforming human beings as tools, the
technological basis of slavery continued to persist throughout history.The article then examines the current
achievements of computer technology in producing intelligent tools.It argues that the *production* of intelligent
tools makes it possible to bypass the social and natural *limitations* of all
past intelligent tools.Once these tools
*outperform* human beings as intelligent tools, humans will no longer be
indispensable as production tools.Consequently, the inception of these new tools eradicates the
*technological* basis of the subjugation of humans by humans.This eradication may start a new civilization
by effecting higher human intelligence, more economic wealth and greater
socio-political freedom in human's future society.

_____________________________________________________

1- TOOLS AND TOOL-MAKING IN HISTORY

Although
anthropologists have different appraisals of the role of tools in the evolution
of primates, they are unanimous in recognizing tool-making as the most
important differentiation of our ancestors from other primates. Making tools
enabled us to pursue our intentions with means *separate* from our bodies.
Tools, in contrast to our limbs, could develop apart from the life and death of
every individual member of our species, thus handing down the fruits of past
productive activities to new generations.

Other
animals occasionally use natural objects as tools, but their tools do not
develop very far beyond the form or state of their natural source. Human-made
tools, on the other hand, have become more and more discernible from natural
objects as we have moved away from the animal kingdom. The reason lies in the
preconditions of our species prior to tool-making. The articulation and mental
capabilities of our ancestors were mature enough to spawn human intelligence
and language. As both tool-making and communication were social activities,
advances in one reciprocally affected the progress in the other. Thus, being a
social animal, human's higher form of communication between individuals (i.e.,
language) evolved alongside tool-making.

Language made possible the retention and transfer of human knowledge apart from
and independent of the life and death of individuals. In this way, knowledge
could be transferred from one generation to another by a means other than
genetic heredity. The advent of writing also enhanced the linguistic transfer of
knowledge. Spoken language conveyed knowledge via memory, habits, expertise, and
cultural assimilation; whereas written language made knowledge transferable in
greater detail and exactness, and less dependent on particular moods of
individuals, i.e. more **objective**. [Tools, language, and writing strengthened human abstract thought. Mathematics
and tools to perform mathematical operations (i.e., a type of mental work) are
found very early in human history maybe from the time humans used their fingers
for counting. Tools similar to the abacus are traceable to the dawn of
civilization. These tools and mathematics further helped the objectification of
knowledge.]

Writing
made possible the use, criticism, and development of knowledge by individuals
spatially and temporally apart; i.e., knowledge became more objective and a
world in itself, discernible from the natural world as well as the subjective
world of every individual. Similarly, tools as distinct from natural
objects-constituted another world stamped by human knowledge yet separate from
it. They were used for physical as well as mental work and were partly
automated in later industrial developments.

Knowledge
and tools were the ingredients of all future human progress (or even the
setbacks). Using knowledge and tools in production and all other aspects of
life reciprocally affected individuals physically, mentally, and socially. The
tremendous progress of our species can be more clearly understood by observing
how children acquire a vast amount of knowledge and learn to use a great
variety of tools in a very short time. Humans are the only species on Earth who
use knowledge and tools in all aspects of their lives. In a word, we can say
that tool-making was the most important activity differentiating our ancestors
from other primates, and human beings are uniquely recognizable by their
production of knowledge and tools in the world of animals. No other
technological upheaval or socio-political development has caused such a
tremendous distinction between our own and other species.

The
world of knowledge and the world of tools have concurred only in one special phenomena: Intelligent tools (e.g., police dogs). These
tools were used by humans, but not produced by them. The possession of sensory
perceptions and locomotion, the capacity to communicate with humans, and the
ability to learn a special skill necessary for a specific task were the ideal
qualities sought in intelligent tools. These tools were peculiarly related to
human's knowledge and needs. Ordinary tools were used and improved by human
knowledge to fulfill human needs and their development was limited only by the
state of technology. But intelligent tools were also limited by natural
evolution which, until the advent of genetic engineering, has been almost
exclusively uninfluenced by human knowledge. The natural limitations of
intelligent tools have mostly been a "good" reason for the
philosophers and historians of tools to pay little attention to these tools.
Nonetheless, modern intelligent tools are not only influenced by human
knowledge, but are more and more becoming the embodiment of our knowledge. The
current capabilities in the *production* of such tools make it necessary to
review past social impact of these tools prior to speculating on their future
potentials.

_____________________________________________________

2- INTELLIGENT TOOLS OF THE PAST

Animals
are the first intelligent tools used by humans. The use of animals as tools
dates back to primitive human societies. One may mention the use of horses as
tools in transportation, dogs in trailing fugitives, doves in carrying
messages, falcons in hunting birds, and many other examples. Using intelligent
tools is not new in human history (even some animals use other animals or
members of their own species as tools). Nevertheless, producing intelligent
tools is a fairly new phenomenon and their improvements are not limited by
natural evolution. I will discuss this point more thoroughly in the next
section. However, now I would like to draw attention to some of the peculiar
features of past intelligent tools; for this purpose, I will concentrate on the
use of horses as tools.

Horses,
as tools of transportation, were used for their locomotive power. Their
biological characteristics provided ease of use, speed, and environmental
adaptability. They (along with camels, llamas, etc.) were preferred over many
stronger animals, as means of transportation, mainly because of their capacity
to act as tools, i.e., to yield to control. For example, it is interesting to
note that gorillas are both more intelligent and stronger than horses, but yet
they lack the capacity to yield to control. Yielding to control or following
orders may not make an animal intelligent, but surely makes it tool-like.
Hence, horses were not selected because of their intelligence (or even their
common sense) but rather for being a tool-like locomotive system.

It
is obvious that these animals could never lose their intelligent
characteristics and humans did not treat them as mere tools either. Feelings
and even affectionate relations between humans and dogs or horses are
commonplace in all civilizations. But these relations existed whenever animals
were considered as companions, not as tools (the same is true in the relations
between humans themselves).

The
above can even be confirmed by the eventual replacement of horses by cars. Cars
outperform horses, both in their locomotive power and in yielding to human
control. But the most stupid horse would recognize a ditch, even if the rider
does not notice; whereas a car may crash if the driver fails to see a ditch.
However, this important difference did not cause humans to even pause before
replacing horses by cars; because the main reason for choosing horses in the
first place was *not* their *intelligence*, but the reason for the choice was
rather the horses' locomotive power and capacity to perform like tools. The
same can be said about dogs and other animals. Of course, this is not to say
that humans always disliked the advantages of common sense in animal tools, but
the point is that it was not the primary criteria for selecting them as
intelligent tools.

Why
then was the intelligence in these tools of little importance to human users? I
think the answer lies in human's choice of having a better *general-purpose*
intelligent tool that could be applied to all tools (i.e., animals included).
This tool was nothing but humans themselves in the role of tools. Only when an
intelligent characteristic was not available in humans, were animals used for
their *intelligence*, and then in a limited domain. For example, the strong
sense of smell in dogs gave them an edge over humans as tools for detecting
smell and humans relied on even the dogs' wit for trailing fugitives.
Otherwise, humans were preferred over animals whenever more intelligence than
just following orders was desired in a tool.

* * *

Thus,
in order to understand the significance of intelligent tools in history, one
should not focus on the use of animals but rather on the use of humans
themselves as tools. Humans were used as tools whenever their sense perceptions
and locomotive abilities, language understanding, and special skills were
utilized as *means of production* (i.e., means to an end). To the degree humans
are clipped of their versatility and their freedom is limited in order to
conform to the production process, the more tool-like they become.In contrast, human being remains an *end in
itself* and is not reduced to a special tool to the degree versatility,
knowledge, and sophistication prevail in his/her productive activities.

The
more complicated the society, the harder it is to draw a line between these two
kinds of human activity; but still, control determines the character of each
kind. As long as a better alternative to human being as an intelligent tool did
not exist, there necessarily developed social relations to compromise the
natural equality of all humans and human's use as a tool. These social
relations have constituted the main part of all social relations in human
history. As a result, it is often difficult to determine whether an individual
is performing as a free individual or as a special-purpose tool. Only slavery
had the clearest distinction of the two *kinds* of humans: The slaves who, as
tools, yielded to the control of their owners, and the slave-owners who ruled
over their slaves and regarded them as mere tools.

Slavery
was the first important use of humans as tools. Slaves were not allowed to have
independent judgment- submission to the control of their owners was the
"virtue" expected from them. They were even *owned*, like any other
tool, as a private property. There were different kinds of slaves trained for
particular undertakings, and there were laws that prevented slaves from
developing into whole individuals, such as those forbidding participation in many
social activities, including education.

The
use of human being as an intelligent tool made it possible for a large part of
the free citizens to distance themselves from direct contact with tools. Thus,
their role in the production process resided in the realm of control, with
knowledge and decision-making as their primary tasks. In other words,
possession of intelligent tools relieved them from working for their basic
needs.

The
great construction works of ancient times were not surpassed until the Industrial
Revolution. Inanimate tools accompanied with intelligent tools (slaves)
required only their owners' knowledge and decision-making to become a
wealth-producing system. It was like having a smart machine which would start
production by verbal orders, would change shape and improve by our desires.
What a long way from the times primitive human had to achieve everything by
his/her own hands! This is how intelligent tools supplemented inanimate tools
through human's journey of progress.

Although
the state of technology in slave society furnished a good technological basis
for using human beings as intelligent tools, the disappearance of slavery was
*not* due to the eradication of that *technological basis*. In fact, the
revival of slavery in early United States history
demonstrated that even the tools of modern America could be
well-used by slaves. In other words, the disappearance of slavery was due to
the social unacceptability of the shameless treatment of our own kind as mere
tools. The more civilized we became, the less could we endure such
inequalities. Needless to say, the whole mental framework of a slave society
was the assumption or perception of slaves as mere tools-an assumption which
certainly was contrary to the truth and was bound to be challenged by some from
both sides.

In
other words, as long as the human race lacked intelligent tools that could
outperform human beings as tools, some form of subjugation of human by human,
or even the possibility of a revival of slavery, could continue to exist.

Besides
the social problems that accompanied the use of animals and humans as
intelligent tools, there was another important difficulty to their use (prior
to genetic engineering): Their natural limitations. Other tools were improved
and refined for new tasks. Only the current state of the technology limited
their progress. Intelligent tools of the *past*, i.e. animals and humans as
tools, were not only limited by the state of technology, but their progress as
tools was also limited by their confinement to natural evolution- a primary
obstacle. For example, it was impossible to extend the length of human's hands
two fold or increase the speed of a horse two times in thousands of years; in
particular, the life span of these tools was technologically unsurpassable. In
comparison, the length of cranes has been extended, the speed of cars has been
increased, and the durability of steel has been enhanced several times during
the last fifty years.

What
made intelligent tools special, i.e., their senses, reasoning, and capacity for
communication, could hardly improve significantly in centuries. The past
intelligent tools (e.g., humans as tools) not only had difficulties performing
as tools (due to social reasons), but their very biological existence imposed a
serious handicap on their progress as tools. Both these negative elements are
absent in the contemporary intelligent tools, i.e., intelligent robots.

_____________________________________________________

3- ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: A NEW ALTERNATIVE

In
order to start from a common understanding of new intelligent tools, I have
summarized the historical milestones of the computer revolution in the
following three paragraphs:

The
developments of computer technology can be divided broadly into two categories:
Number processing and symbol processing. The first category has made information much
more accessible, retainable, and transferable than all the improvements of
printing technology.[Although it still lacks the random accessibility of book thumbing or newspaper
browsing.

] Computers have surpassed all past calculation tools
(e.g., abacus or slide rules) in speed, functional variety, and ease of use.
Consequently, by extending automation to monotonous mental labor, information
processing is expanding the scope of the printing press and the industrial
revolution to new frontiers.

The
second category, i.e., symbol processing or artificial intelligence (Al),
enables computers to simulate sensory perception and locomotion, reasoning and
problem-solving, natural language, and many other human capabilities.
[Nonetheless, the simulation of some mental processes such as postulating basic
theorems, intuitive reasoning, and common sense understanding are still very
much beyond reach.]

Already intelligent vision systems have been introduced to the production
process, working alongside human workers. Knowledge processing has been
used to make expert systems for a variety of tasks such as medical diagnose.
[For example, *Internist* expert system that has been made at the University of
Pittsburgh in the U.S. can diagnose at the two third level of an expert doctor
of internal medicine. Similar systems have been made, or are being made,
in the areas of legal, financial, and psychological counseling, and for many
other areas of human expertise]. Also, natural language query
systems have been on the market for quite some time.

Regardless
of the philosophical controversies surrounding the nature of intelligence, all
the above tools perform tasks previously considered to require intelligence, and
thus could be well called intelligent tools in the *narrow* sense of the term.
In other words, artificial intelligence is presenting a new kind of alternative
to all past intelligent tools. This reality is prompting philosophers of Al to
shift their focus from the realm of the philosophy of mind (i.e., whether it is
possible to have intelligent machines!) to the realm of socio-political
philosophy and look at the social impact of intelligent tools on our society.
Below, I demonstrate how these newly *produced* intelligent tools bypass the
limitations of past intelligent tools. AI artifacts, outperforming humans as
tools in the near future, may become the cornerstone of a new civilization free
from the subjugation of human by human.

** *

Present-day
intelligent tools are called intelligent robots. [For
explanation of nanobots in Nanotechnology, please see Is Nanotechnology Real?]They are actually a unique
synthesis of tools and knowledge, a historical first. They can be equipped with
vision systems (plus other sensory systems and locomotion), special knowledge
of various domains, and natural language capabilities of various human
languages. They are not limited by natural evolution. Thus, contrary to an
animal or a human, a robot's vision can be extended and is limited only by the
state of technology. Its required special domain knowledge can be increased to
generate the most efficient output of the best skilled laborer or expert. Its
communication capacity can be extended to dozens of languages, whereas an
average human worker barely manages to communicate in more than one language. In
short, the only limitation to the progress of intelligent robots is the level
of technology, which is in turn limited by human intelligence itself.
Therefore, exhausting the capabilities of intelligent tools will be concurrent
with the increase of human intelligence to levels incomparable to any past
development.

I
do not claim that these artifacts are presently in a position to approach human
common sense. But the stone tools of Homo Sapiens
could never compete with humans or animals in lifting objects. It was a long
time before levers and windmills were made; nevertheless, producing stone tools
made future improvements possible such that we can have tools like lift-trucks
today which exceed the power of any athlete or even strong animals. Thus, the current
ability of state-of-the-art intelligent robots is not as important as their
future possibilities.

For
the first time in history, production of the above tools has enabled humans to
surpass the barrier of natural evolution for intelligent tools. This will
undoubtedly be a boom to world production. Moreover, once these tools out-
perform humans as intelligent tools, there will no longer even be any
technological necessity to allow degrading members of our own species to the
rank of tools. In sum, with the production of intelligent tools, we can expect
the technological basis for any kind of human slavery to disappear in the near
future. **We are witnessing an event as important as the first making of tools
by our ancestors.** This development may start a new civilization that may
foster a simultaneous enhancement of our socio-political freedoms on one hand
and of our economic wealth on the other- a concurrence rarely achieved in human
history. In such a society, the essential human activity will resemble more the
free exploration of an affluent artist than the soldier-type obedience of a
fortuneless laborer.

Finally,
it is appropriate to mention that in this treatise, I have examined robots only
as tools. I know, as many authors have pointed out, there is a *logical*
possibility that these robots could turn into a new species surpassing human's
current intelligence (yet I think by then humans will also have moved far more
ahead and may still be ahead of them). There are numerous possibilities that
more advanced species may reside on Earth some day (e.g., extraterrestrials are
still a good possibility), and their origins could be in anything from genetic
engineering and space travel to intelligent robot production and human
evolution. Perhaps we will share mostly biological needs with animals and
primarily social needs with other intelligences. This may help eliminate some
of our *anthropocentric* views of the world which have been a part of our world
outlook since the fall of early Greek civilization. However, these issues fall
beyond the scope of this review as I have focused solely on the technological
basis of the subjugation of human by human.

There
is every reason to believe that the progress of these new intelligent tools
would cause our common sense to grow immensely by challenging it to an
unprecedented extent. It will create a new civilization in which humans, for
the first time, are challenged by other creatures, not only for their physical
strength, but also by these new artifacts for their intelligence. The
technological basis of human being's subjugation by humans and its degrading
consequences will be eliminated in society; thus, giving rise to the potential
for higher human intelligence, tremendous wealth and more socio-political
freedom.

In
this light, I welcome the coming of the new civilization and look forward to a
better future following upon the heels of the contemporary upheaval.
Pessimistic views about our future arise from viewing our own evolution to be
static while intelligent tools progress. The emergence of artificial
intelligence has made it feasible for human beings to be intellectually
challenged by the immense tasks of exhausting the intelligent characteristics
of some artifacts- a historical first. Together with improvements in genetic
engineering and telecommunications, the production process will change so
rapidly in this space-age society that we can barely imagine even its most
general lines. But whatever shape the new social formations may take, some
possible social effects of these intelligent tools may include:

*
A broadened scope of our intelligence: Our common sense should become much more
developed and we should expect many new discoveries, inventions, and even a new
understanding of ourselves.

*
A freeing of the majority of human beings from living as tools and means of
production: A greater percentage of people should be able to do what they like
rather than being forced to do something they dislike merely to secure their
basic needs.

*
A tremendous multiplication of the wealth of humankind: The opening of new
frontiers before us, in space or on Earth, will certainly follow the above
advancements.

At
first glance, molding the new production processes, e.g., building
"factories and offices of the future," or "homes of the
future," may appear to be the key endeavor for shaping the future.
Nonetheless, the real *challenge* before future-minded individuals is the
improvement and introduction of appropriate social relations if the fruits of
these technological advancements are to be realized. [For
example, giving priority to the production of artificial kidneys rather than
using kidneys of other humans which has given rise to the criminal kidney trade
business.] The role of science will
be enhanced both due to the new technical needs of sophisticated,
knowledge-intensive production processes and due to the new social needs of the
related human interaction. Hence, we can expect an increased sophistication of
essential human pursuits; the central activity of most individuals will likely
be related to the progress of social relations and the enhancement of
knowledge. We may even find personal income based on a synthesis of one's
intentions and needs.

The
distribution of wealth and power in this new civilization will remain a social
issue rather than a technical matter. Thus, whether everyone and every country
will be able to avail themselves of these intelligent tools and accompanying
benefits depends on future social institutions. These achievements may even add
to the misery of many individuals for some time. However, I am optimistic about
the future. I think that with the disappearance of the technological basis for
treating any part of humankind as tools, humans will, at least, be able to
spend more effort on resolving social issues and on molding new social
institutions. These new social institutions must address and alleviate the
menace of poverty, tyranny, war, and ecological deterioration. Whether the new
civilization will evolve peacefully and uniformly world-wide is still an open
question.